Tag: MGame

Seoyugi is a Maple Story-like side scroll game developed by a Korean developer that launched Ghost Online (귀혼:Kor). The game received a positive review for its unique background graphics, seamless movement and adorable characters.

Thanks to the success of browser games likes of Tribal Wars (부족전쟁: Kor) and 7th Dragon(칠용전설: Kor) in Korea, the Korean browser-based game market is hitting its peak. More than 10 games was launched in 2009 and more games will follow the suit in 2010.

<Inno Games’s Tribal Wars>

From Small to Major Publishers

From a developer’s perspective, browser-based games have their certain merits; lower production costs and shorter project time are required to create games. Hence higher ROI once the game operation reaches to a certain point.

For such reason, new and small studios are eager to enters the market. According to an industry source, in general it takes about 4 experienced programmers to create?a browser-based game in 4 to 6 months, 1 year tops within a 100 million Won budget (US$ 77,000).

A publisher who operates a game portal can use a browser-based games to entice casual gamers to its portal site since it’s very easy to play. A game portal with high paying users claimed that ARPU jumped up after they launched a browser game.

Korean publishers preferred a Chinese game that already has been operated for some time and gained a fan base. And the willingness of Chinese games to slash their price to enter the Korean market doesn’t hurt, either.

Starting with Chinese games, Korean publishers plan to learn operation know-how then expand to develop their own games with their intellectual property.

<A real estate simulation game Buy City was developed by only three game developers>

Long Term Strategy is Needed

Everyone seems to consider the market segment untouched and untapped so far. The competition, however, is so fierce that there is no doubt that the market will be quickly crowded soon.

The browser-based gaming market is relatively small compared to online gaming market. Commercially successful games likes of Tribal Wars and 7th Dragon generated monthly revenue less than 300 million Won (US$ 0.2 million). So publishers are looking for an alternative revenue source like 7th Dragon ‘channeling’ with other portals.

The common concern among publishers is that players will not tell the difference between games that will be flooded in this year. So each publisher needs to develop a differentiated strategy according to its business nature.?Major publisher has a luxury to pay for the education as the company doesn’t expect to reach a?break even?point right away. So it tends to try learn as much as possible from the operation experience.

In the meantime a small self-publishing developer is more likely to act on instant-monetizing. In this case a game should stand out of increasing?competition first. Then it can venture into other revenue sources such as channeling down the road.

Genre Diversification

It seems that game portals showed best results out of adding?browser-based games to their lineups. CJ Internet’s game portal NetMarble has shown a success as channeling 7th Dragon. NCsoft leveraged Murim Empire with AION as throwing a co-event.

Major game portals set up a new?task force?team to secure new contents and develop business strategies from channeling to self-publishing around browser-based ?games. Or even some company brought in an external team to develop a browser game on its own.

It is also a good opportunity for emerging game companies that prepare to launch a game portal site. Tongyang Online launched a game portal, Gamehama, with three browser games including Apocalyps and Three Kingdoms W and showed some positive results.

As the market became more crowded, there has been some efforts to differentiate themselves from others.

MGame plans to launch European games such as Sci-Fi RPG Dark Orbit and Sea Fight. NCsoft allocated some personnel to develop a flash MMO browser game.

“When it comes to browser games, the key to success is planning. There is no such thing as over-planning. Abusing in-game items to generate more items definitely shortens the life cycle so planning for commercial service should not be treated lightly.” said the industry insider.

Dec. 30KoreaComments Off on [Korea] 5 Key Trends for 2009? ⑤ Browser-Based Games

This is the fifth and the last installment of the five-part series: Browser-based games.

Browser-based games seem to be a hit in Korea. From a publisher’s view, browser-based games are compatible even with low-spec PCs as long as they are connected with Internet. On top of that, relatively short?development time, low server?operation?costs, no limit on CCUs, low publishing costs all played in favor of?browser-based game frenzy in 2009.

It seems a perfect fit especially for portal operators who would love to expand their lineup with low cost browser-based games. As a result, Chinese games that already developed enough contents are expected to roll out fast in Korea.

Browser-based games became a necessity for major publishers in Korea; NCsoft has?Murim Empire (무림제국: Kor) and Battle Hero (not in service yet) in its pipeline, while Nexon has 熱血三國 (열혈삼국: Kor, not in service), SONOV has Berkanix, Aeon Soft has 武林英雄 (무림영웅: Kor) and Castle of Heroes, Actoz Soft has 縱橫天下 (종횡천하: Kor). Mgame also announced its expansion plan for browser-based games.

<Aeon Soft’s?Castle of Heroes>

Suhee Lee, a CEO of Joara, discussed the current trend of the browser-based game’s success at Korea Games Conference (KGC) 2009. “The market size of Korean browser-based games is estimated at 3 billion Won (US$ 2.3 million), which is considerably small compared to the online gaming market. ?7th Dragon (칠용전설: Kor) which is considered as the most successful game in the genre makes only 200~300 million Won (US$ 154,000~231,000) per month,” Lee explained. “However, the major publishers plan to introduce more than 10 games this year alone and probably more than 100 browser-based games next year. Under the circumstance, the market is expected to grow fast next year.”

<NCsoft’s Murim Empire>

* I couldn’t find English titles of some games here and would appreciate if anyone would help me on that.

MGAME USA launched its fantasy MMORPG CloudNine OBT November 25th via its online game portal site NETGAME.?Last six months, MGame USA focused on security and even had a separate CBT just for security and anti-hack program test.

MGAME USA is a US subsidiary of a Korean online game publisher MGAME. MGAME USA operates an online game portal site, NETGAME and so far published?HERO ONLINE, SCIONS of FATE, and OPERATION7.